


No time for wolves

by girlupnorth



Series: A song of ice and fire: No time for wolves [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-22
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:37:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlupnorth/pseuds/girlupnorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About 10 years after <i>A game of thrones</i>, Sansa returns to the court in King's Landing, to find it much altered. Jon and Daenerys co-rule Westeros, Littlefinger schemes to gain power, and Sansa has to find a place for herself in the court.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sansa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_magrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_magrat/gifts).



> Set about 8 years after _A feast for crows_ , and includes spoilers to that book. Obviously, AU to the (upcoming) _A dance with dragons_.
> 
>  
> 
> Written in 2008 for Miss Magrat, who wanted a Jon/Sansa story. Obviously, I let my ideas run wild, resulting in this monster of a fic.
> 
> Beta-red by Novin_ha.
> 
> There's also a one-off sequel, _Something in our skies_.

It has taken her eight years to return to the court.

She would sometimes imagine her coming back: the journey, the sight of the castle walls from afar, the crowds on the streets of King’s Landing, then the throne room, where the courtiers would fall silent upon seeing her enter. There was a time when she expected to be led into the throne room a prisoner, accused of Jeoffrey’s murder on her return; then she thought she would come as the Princess in the North, and did not quite know how that return could look like.

When she does return, it is as one of many ladies coming to the court after the war.

There is some whispering as she walks through the chamber on her lord husband’s arm. That she has been the Princess in the North for a short while, and that she is the king’s cousin, causes some sensation; there must have been stories about her, and some people find her intriguing. Of course, those who perceive others in the terms of participation in the game of – courts now rather than thrones do not find her interesting in the slightest, thinking her a mere pawn in the hands of her lord husband. Mayhaps it is those who are right. Certainly they should not suspect her of being interesting; if there is one thing that she has learnt over those eight years, it is that being thought overly clever is not a good thing.

It takes some endurance to walk through the stuffy room with a smile on her face and a kind word for everybody right after the long journey that she had, but Sansa finds herself animated by the mere fact of being back at the court. There are so many people for her to see, to meet, to solve.

Compared to other occasions when she was here, the throne room is quite empty upon her arrival. She soon realizes that the people present are almost all strangers to her.

There is the Grand Maester Marwyn, the queen’s man, whom Sansa heard being talked about as a renegade. Then there are the Easterners, almost more of them than of the natives of Westeros, all of them – the queen’s battle companions, and most of them – clearly not at their ease, enclosed in this space. No Northerners; for that she is grateful. No Dornishmen. From the West, no Tyrrells or Lannisters – Cersei and Tommen are, of course, dead, Myrcella is at Casterly Rock with Tyrion, Jaime, pardoned by the king, at the Wall; the lesser Lannisters have withdrawn to their castles and, as her lord husband wrote her, pretend to never have been interested in the courtly matters.

The knights are all but unknown to her, with the exception of ser Barristan Selmy, reinstated by the queen as the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. There is a new master of the laws – the master of the coin, also new, is missing. No sign of Varys; supposedly, he remained in the East. No new Hand, either; Sansa wonders briefly if the king and the queen think that between the two of them, they need no Hand.

The lords and ladies are mostly of small families from the plains, who in the war have raised their banners for the Targaryens, and are now seeking favour in the court; her lord husband wrote to her of them.

And then there is the royal couple.

The king and the queen both stand on the steps leading to the Iron Throne, and talk to the courtiers surrounding them. The white direwolf, Ghost, still a companion to the king after all these years, lies directly under the Throne; Sansa watches him for a moment, before turning her eyes to Jon.

Sansa has seen three kings in her life. The first of them, supposedly a great war hero, was a drunkard with enough bastard children to supply three families – though not the father to his own heir; the second was a stupid, cruel boy. Of both of them she cannot but think with contempt.

The new king finally looks and acts his part well, courteous, kind, and, according to reports, a good monarch. If Sansa had met Jon Targaryen as a girl, she would have promptly fallen in love with him.

 _I used to hate him when we were children._

Then again, she was not very much fond of any of her siblings then. Rickon was too small, Bran – too noisy, Arya – not enough ladylike. Robb ignored her, and Jon – Jon was not her real brother, but a bastard, and Sansa was being raised to shun out bastards, pretend not to notice them; and so she shunned out and did not notice Jon, and hated him for being a stain on the family honour.

When she was at the Vale, for some short time she harboured a thought of trying to meet him, thinking them the only ones remaining of Winterfell. She stopped minding his bloodline then, because at least in part it was shared with hers, as was his childhood.

The revelations that came to her when she had returned to Winterfell shocked her. They stated Jon was not a bastard, but an heir to Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, whose marriage to Lyanna Stark had been kept secret for all those years, until someone chose to reveal it. Not her brother, but her cousin, then; they have crowned him shortly after that, and he married, as Targaryens did, his kin, Daenerys.

Sansa met him, briefly, in Winterfell, when she was giving him the North; they did not even have time to talk before he had to leave again for the battlefield.

Almost four years have passed since then, and only now has she made it to the court. Her lord husband has already been there for a while, but Sansa, travelling with two little children, needed much more time to cross the country.

Jon is very handsome in Targaryen red and black, and Sansa does not need to look around to guess how the women of the court are impressed by his rare smiles, by his quiet demeanour. At eleven, she would have been in love already; but she is no longer a girl, and it takes now more than being a handsome king for Sansa to fall in love with a man.

She used to hate him when they were children; then again, at one time she used to hate the man who would become her own lord husband.

Daenerys Targaryen differs from Cersei Lannister, the one other queen that Sansa knew, like moon from the sun. Oh, Daenerys is blond-haired like Cersei was; but she is much younger, slimmer, does not have Cersei’s round breasts and hips, and in a formal dress of red and black she looks a little awkward. When Daenerys speaks to her, Sansa has the idea that the queen is bored in this room, and would much rather be somewhere far from it.

 _She does not understand the court, nor does she try to organize it around herself… and she should._

When they finally turn to leave, and make their way towards the doorway, her lord husband touches her hand briefly, a gesture of possessiveness here more than one of love. Sansa’s eyes fly to him, and she smiles. Being married to Petyr Baelish is much better than she could have expected, and gives her an odd sense of safety.

Once they have reached the tower where their chambers are located, Sansa first sees to the children. They are being put to sleep; a task made difficult by their excitement at Petyr’s appearance. Eventually though, this is settled, and they can sit to supper.

“How do you find the court?” Petyr asks when they are seated at the table. The servants begin to bring in the supper, starting with Arbor wine. Sansa sips the wonderfully cool drink for a moment before answering.

“It is very chaotic,” she says at last. “And – not really a court, yet.”

Petyr smiles above his goblet. “Yes. This is exactly the problem,” he says. “Most of them have never seen a court before they have arrived to this one – and they are not quite sure what to do with themselves here. Even the king… what do you think about the king, Sansa?”

“You have watched him for a while now, my lord. What do you think about him?” asks Sansa. Judging the courtiers and the court itself from one encounter is not that difficult; about Jon, she can only tell that he makes much better initial impression than Robert Baratheon.

“He is not entirely bad,” says Petyr, and coming from him, it is a high praise for somebody who is not Sansa or himself. Venison makes the table now, and they commence eating. “He may learn yet. For now, he is very careful not to make a wrong move, as if he thought we might dethrone him if he does make one.”

“We have forgiven the Baratheons so many wrong moves that we may as well forgive one from the rightful heir,” says Sansa, a little amused. “And what about Daenerys, my lord?”

Petyr chuckles softly. “Oh, our dear queen is half an Eastern wildling still,” he says. “Formidable in the battle, they say, but for the matters of the court she has no patience, and failing to understand the Westerners annoys her to no end. Your cousin” – at this he smiles – “tempers her a little, but not enough for the court not to see her irritation.”

Sansa considers this while eating a few bites of her venison. The meat is most excellent; she will have to command Petyr on his choice of the cook.

“And you, my lord? Where do you – where do we fit in here?”

He told her once that he thrived on chaos, but at this moment the court, though chaotic, does not seem like a place for him; Sansa wonders if her lord husband has already come up with a plan that will give him something interesting to take care of at the court.

Petyr does not reply, instead changing the subject matter to that of running their household. They discuss briefly the number of servants and maids that they should have, then return for a moment to Sansa’s journey down the Kingsroad.

A servant brings in a plate of fruit. Sansa does not really want to prolong the meal, longing for the bed already, but she does accept the apple that Petyr selects for her, and eats it in small bites.

Finally they make it to the bed chamber and, after all these months of sleeping alone, Sansa gets quite lost under Petyr’s touch. Afterwards, she lies next to him, content and sleepy, with her head against his arm.

After they have broken fast the next morning she begins to scrutinize her new household. The chambers are well kept and furnished, and, aside from the part of the castle taken by the royal couple, quite possibly the most comfortable in the entire building; she wonders whom Petyr had to pay to secure the rooms for them.

The servants seem to have been chosen with care: some of them have been Petyr’s people for quite some time, some are new to Sansa; she decides to watch them for a time and then, if need be, arrange for more. The maids that she has will do at the moment, though she considers employing one more, who could chiefly look after the children.

Sansa devotes a chief part of one day to ordering new dresses for herself, and some clothes for her children, and two of her current maids, Idaly and Graecy, help her look through the fabrics that the seamstress brings in. Idaly, who has lived at the court for quite some time now, and whom Sansa apparently inherited from Daenerys, suggests which cuts of dresses to choose; Graecy pays mind to the colours.

Between the household matters, the conversations with Petyr and the moments passed at the court, the time passes Sansa so fast that she has not one moment to stop and ponder the things around her. But she takes them in, she observes the people around her, and she arrives at some conclusions.

Daenerys is a warrior-queen, not a lady-queen, that much is apparent. During these early days of Sansa’s stay at the court the queen only makes one attempt to unite the ladies around herself, not aware perhaps of the fact that this should be her constant occupation. The ladies do not enjoy themselves very much, and neither does the queen. She is annoyed and bored very easily, just like Sansa’s lord husband said.

“What do you make of the court now?” asks Petyr one evening during another supper they are having together. A fortnight has passed, and Sansa is ready to say that the household matters have been settled to her liking; she can direct her interest towards the court now.

“It’s even more chaotic that I’ve thought,” says Sansa. “It is a wonder it hasn’t fallen apart yet.”

“We are all too eager for gaining favour in our dear monarchs’ eyes to let that happen, my dear,” says Petyr with a small smirk.

“Do _they_ care, though?” asks Sansa, cutting her meat into small pieces. “The queen could not mind the court less, I think.”

There is an odd spark in Petyr’s eyes. “And the king?” he asks.

“I don’t really see him much,” replies Sansa, and, having taken a sip of her wine, adds, “I think they have too much on their hands, the king and the queen, and maybe this is why the court suffers.”

Petyr watches her carefully before asking the next question.

“Do you like the king, Sansa? From what you do see of him.”

The question comes out of nowhere. Sansa blinks, and covers her surprise by having one more sip of wine.

“I guess. I haven’t given it a thought,” she says eventually, aware of how her lord husband watches her face. Jon seems to be forever busy with some matters concerning the land, though when they pass each other somewhere within castle walls, he never fails to greet her and exchange a few words. The ladies seem to admire him much, from what Sansa has noticed, but her own reaction to him consists mostly of relief that he has not sought to talk with her about Winterfell so far.

“He isn’t that bad, is he?” asks Petyr, as if reading her thoughts. “And a perfect knight to that, just as you like.”

“I do not need _knights_ anymore,” she says, and gives him a smile. _Don’t I have you?_

Petyr smiles back, but instead of letting go of the subject, continues to inquire her about the virtues of Jon Targaryen.

Gradually, an idea appears in her head. It is repulsive, it is against every principle she can think of, and absolutely despicable. But since it is exactly the kind of an idea that her lord husband would come up when in his Littlefinger mood, Sansa knows what he is going to ask of her before the question drops.

So when he asks her what she would think about seducing the king, Sansa fails to be surprised, and only asks him why.


	2. Jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon angsts, and the royal couple argues incessantly.

He never expected that he would become a king.

Not even when they told him that he was a Targaryen did he think that it would mean taking the crown. Nobody had ever heard of him, and nobody would want him to become the king, he reasoned. Most importantly, though, getting crowned would mean breaking his oath to the Night Watch, and he did not want that in the slightest.

Later, when it became apparent that there _were_ people who thought it necessary for him to take the throne, he spent a considerable amount of time struggling with his conscience. Either choice was, in some respects, a bad one; he made the one he considered better for the _others_ , not for himself.

Still, he has not fully reconciled with his having become the king. By daylight, he is able to enjoy King’s Landing, the castle of his unknown grandfathers, the fiery temper of his queen wife and the sound of his son’s voice; yet the broken oaths come back to haunt him at night.

Daenerys, quick and clever as she is, does not understand Jon’s concerns.

“You are the heir. What were you supposed to do? Wait until the realm bleeds itself out?” she asks him. Jon tells her, again, of her – of _their_ – great-great uncle Aemon, who, when offered, refused the Iron Throne three times because of his oaths.

“And doubtlessly, he is to be admired,” says Daenerys, impatient as ever. “But he was not the only heir, the only hope for the peace at any of those times.”

“Neither was I,” says Jon. Daenerys had already proclaimed herself the queen and entered the land with her army when revelations of his paternity came to the surface.

“Like they would ever unite under a stranger, and a woman to that,” says Daenerys.

They argue constantly; it is a peaceful day if only one quarrel rings through their chambers. Daenerys is his opposite: impatient, hot-tempered, quick to form judgement and opinions, more _fire and blood_ than Jon will ever be. And yet he loves her, almost from the moment when she fell off they sky on a black dragon and saved him from the red sorceress.

It occurs to Jon that being a king is far easier at war, in the battle, than in the times of peace. The magnitude of his land and of matters that need to be taken care of continues to startle and bother him. At the beginning of their reign, Daenerys and he decided not to appoint a Hand, thinking that, sharing the rule between them, they would not need one. What they failed to consider was that neither of them grew up in the court, watching their lord fathers rule the realm and learning from these observations.

Jon’s experience from leading the men at the Wall helps, a little, as well as Daenerys’ experiences from the East; but the members of their Small Council have little to no experience of their own, not on that large a scale of governing, and Jon wonders how many blunders they may allow themselves to make, before his subjects are done with them.

The court causes him many a headache. For truly enjoying the lords and ladies’ presence he would have had to have been brought up at the court. Daenerys enjoys it little more than him, although she is much more eager to spend time with the courtiers than Jon does.

Between the ruling and the court, the days pass quickly. When the spring seems to be at its peak, Jon’s cousin Sansa comes to King’s Landing with her children.

Seeing her gives Jon a peculiar feeling. To say that they were never close would be an understatement, and yet it seems that with Sansa arrives a shadow of Winterfell, and nostalgia after a life long gone. _I am a Targaryen_ , he reminds himself. _I’ve never really been a Stark, and Winterfell never belonged to me._

He expects Sansa to make some small mention of their childhood together, by way of showing the other courtiers her high position, but she never does. Her greetings to Daenerys and him are warm and polite. She answers their questions about her journey, comments on the weather, expresses a wish to be their friend, and then is led away by her lord husband to meet the lords and ladies that currently are at the court.

“Your cousin is pretty, but a little bland,” tells him Daenerys later that day. “Is she more interesting when you know her better?”

“I’ve never really known her,” replies Jon. He tries to recall some particular memory of Sansa, but fails; in the days of Winterfell, she would pretend not to notice him, taking after her lady mother’s example. “She is said to be the very image of a lady,” he says eventually.

“Image, perhaps,” says Daenerys with laughter. “But is there any spirit to accompany that image?”

Daenerys is all spirit, he thinks with a smile, and then kisses his queen wife.

The following days are very much routine for him; Daenerys, meanwhile, gets the idea of gathering the ladies around her, as bestows the queen. The attempt, however, leaves her frustrated.

“I don’t understand that cousin of yours,” she tells him at the end of a long tirade on why she cannot abide with the ladies. “That old Lady Egen throws her a load of vile insinuations in the face, and Lady Sansa never for a moment stops to smile.”

“What insinuations?” asks Jon, taken aback.

“She tried to question someone’s death, if I understood her,” says Daenerys carelessly. “And when your cousin had left, Lady Egen told me and the few ladies that remained that she had never seen a more foolish young woman in her life.”

Daenerys’ forgets all about the court the instant when a raven from the East arrives, carrying a letter from one of the cities which his queen wife has briefly ruled, and which are now possession of the crown. The letter informs them of fights in the East, concentrated around Daenerys’ cities.

“And to think they have promised me eternal peace,” says Daenerys when they have read the letter. She paces the chamber like an angry cat. “Oh, they will be punished. All of them.”

“You might try displaying mercy once,” says Jon, and Daenerys at once raises to the bait.

“Mercy, of course,” she says. “You only know mercy. You have pardoned _my father’s murderer_!”

“Being sent to the Wall hardly equals being pardoned,” says Jon, wearily. They have already had this argument a hundred times over, and at one point he thought that the whole matter would cause their marriage to fall apart. He does not even mention now that Daenerys’ father was his grandfather, and that he could want revenge as much as she did.

“You gave him a fair trial!” Daenerys snarls, her hatred towards Jaime Lannister ablaze again. “To a traitor, a kingslayer, a Lannister!”

“We had to treat him in a way that wouldn’t offend Tyrion,” he reminds her. Fight beside them he might, but his Lannister pride would have made him leave their side the moment they harmed his brother. “And Jaime fought for us, too.”

“Not offend Tyrion? He got his niece, and Viserion, and Casterly Rock,” says Daenerys. “What more should we have given him? Should we have returned your cousin to him?”

 _I probably would have, but she had been wed to Lord Baelish already._ “You know that we had to reward Tyrion after the war,” says Jon. “And it was you who first allowed him to fight beside you, wasn’t it, my lady?”

Daenerys stops in the middle of the chamber, lets out an angry cry, and storms out.

She does not emerge out of her chambers that day, and the courtiers are rather uneasy with her absence. After his dinner Jon talks to the Master of the Laws, who tells him that the court gossip has it that the queen’s moods own to her being with a child.

Jon does not answer; there is no need to. It has been prophesied that Daenerys would never have a child; but the Mountain-That-Rides fell in the battlefield, the Martells raised their sun-adorned banners in the west, and the Greyjoys bled themselves out; and Daenerys Targaryen did give birth to a son. However, the labour was troublesome enough to ensure that prince Aemon would never have a sibling, which worries Jon some. Their son appears healthy, but it still may come that he will die; what then with the succession?

Another raven comes within few days, carrying news of further riots in the East, and Daenerys makes her decision right away.

“I’m taking Drogon and going to Meereen,” she says, and Jon knows better than to protest. His wife is an excellent commander in the battle, and deadlier than Jon himself when on her dragon. Her people are faithful, her reactions – quick; no harm is going to come to her.

Their last night is, as always before they part, passionate and much too short. In the morning, Daenerys boards the ship, and her black-and-red dragon, enormous and frightening, flies over the mast.

Daenerys’ departure means all the more work for Jon. In the midst of all the matters to look after he does not begin to miss his queen wife until the following day, when he breaks his fast all on his own. Without Daenerys, the meal is quiet and boring, and Jon finds himself more lonely that he should.

A couple days after Daenerys has left, Lord Keath from the Trident asks for Jon’s permission to return to his castle. The spring is at its height, the fields need to be taken care of and the people – to be made to work.

Once Jon agrees, the other lords too begin to issue requests to be able to leave for their own lands. Within days, the castle loses half of its inhabitants, and still more set out every day. It is of some relief to Jon not to be forced to exchange courtesies and listen to flatteries on every corner of the castle’s halls.

He walks through the gardens one day, thinking about a letter he has just received from Dorne. The Prince Quentyn writes about the crown’s debts and about conflicts between the Dornish houses. It is usually Daenerys who answers his letters, having known him since he came to join her side when she still was in the East, but with Daenerys absent, it is Jon’s responsibility to reply.

Lost in attempts to formulate the letter, he comes back to reality at the sound of children’s laughter.

Turning into a new lane, Jon sees his own son, Aemon, chasing after a small, dark-haired boy. A little girl, also dark-haired, trots after the boys around the bushes. The maids, two of which Jon recognizes as Aemon’s care-takers, are anxiously watching over the children. Looking past them, he sees a red-haired woman, sitting on a bench a little further from the group, also looking at the children. When she glances up at Jon, he recognizes Sansa.

“Your Grace,” says Sansa, getting up immediately, and walking towards Jon. She curtsies, and then calls for her children to stop running around and give their respects to the king. The girl, whom Sansa calls “Sanny”, comes towards them at once, and makes a funny little curtsy; her brother breaks off the chase after Aemon a while later, and bows, a little clumsily. Then they both stare at Jon.

“I hope you do not mind them playing with the prince,” says Sansa, and looks at Jon with a slight uncertainty. “They have come upon him during our walk, and they have taken to each other at once.”

“Do not worry, my lady,” says Jon, thinking that his son could probably use the company of children his age. “It will not hurt any of them to run together a little.”

“No, probably not,” says Sansa. She smiles, and looks down to her children. “You can go now,” she says, and they promptly run away.

“Have you made yourself at home here in the castle, my lady?” asks Jon after a long moment of silence.

“Thank you, I have,” she replies. “I have to admit that I like the castle a great deal more now than I used to, back in the day.”

She has changed a lot since their childhood, at last physically, and does not resemble her lady mother half as much as he had thought she would. Lady Catelyn’s face was all soft lines and delicate arches; Sansa’s face features are sharper, with slightly more pronounced cheekbones and thinner lips. Her eyes are of deeper blue than he had remembered, although perhaps it is the emerald pendant that she is wearing which changes their colour. _She is beautiful_ , Jon thinks, and finally comes to understand why all those young lords pledged their loyalty to her when her future lord husband named her the Princess in the North.

Her lord husband. “Littlefinger has played you all,” said Tyrion Lannister upon hearing of Sansa’s marriage; she had been wed to Lord Baelish in exchange for his support for Jon and Daenerys. It was an idea of Bran’s, and in the end it turned that he had been right, for the Vale and the Trident did go after Lord Baelish’s lead, and helped greatly in winning the war. Still, Jon wonders whether Sansa’s marriage is happy – not that she would tell him, he realizes; she is too much a lady for that.

“You must feel quite bored now, with all the ladies leaving,” he says, becoming aware that they have again been silent for quite a while. Their children argue something in the distance, before launching into running around again.

“Oh, it doesn’t bother me at all,” says Sansa. “I have been on the road for such a long time that it is pleasant to be able to stay at one place for a while.” She glances at his hands, and Jon recalls the letter from Dorne. “But you must be very busy, and I am taking up your time, my lord,” she says, sounding a little bothered.

“It is not that immediate,” says Jon at once, “But – yes, I have to go back to my duties. My lady-” He begins to make a bow, thinking that he would not mind spending with her a little more time in this garden, when Sansa stops him suddenly.

“Wait,” she says. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Your Grace, if you have had any news about Arya lately?”

Jon hesitates. He knows that despite all the pleading and reasoning from both Sansa and Bran, Arya has not spoken to Sansa since she learnt about Sansa’s marriage, a resolution facilitated by the fact that having married Prince Quentyn, Arya lives now in Dorne.

She has not spoken to Jon since he was made the king, in their last conversation scolding him for oath-breaking like nobody else did. Still, Prince Quentyn’s letters do mention Arya, and there is no reason for Jon to conceal his knowledge about her from Sansa.

“She is happy and in good health, the prince writes. And with a child again,” he says, thinking a moment too late that perhaps the last piece of information should not be spoken about so freely.

Sansa, however, does not blush, nor does she seem offended; _truly, she is changed_.

“It is so difficult to picture Arya with a child,” she says only, and offers him a smile. “Thank you, Your Grace.” She replies to his bow with a curtsy, and Jon regrets having to leave.

As he makes his way towards the castle, the children are still playing in the sun.


	3. Sansa

The lords and ladies are all leaving King’s Landing and on every walk around the castle walls Sansa catches glimpses of wagons being loaded and horses mounted. It is of surprise to her neither that they are departing, nor that they have waited until the queen has disappeared from King’s Landing for some war in the East to do so. Feeble as the court may have been, Daenerys’ presence at least gave it a semblance of reality; now this semblance is gone.

There has been a raven from Winterfell with a short letter from Bran, announcing his upcoming arrival at the court. Sansa feels rather curious about her brother’s intentions, and awaits him anxiously, as they have not seen each other for almost two years now. She wishes only that she could show Bran the city at some other time of the year; she fears that he shall despise its heat and the revolting smells after his forests in the North.

Oddly, _she_ has not had enough of King’s Landing’s climate yet; it is a relief to be able to go out in the sun after five years of frost and winter winds, and a pleasure to be able to look at flowers and green leaves. On leaving the North, she made a quiet promise to only come back to those parts of the land in the heart of the summer.

 _Truly, if the cold weather repels me, I am no Stark anymore_. She pauses for a moment, and from the height of the walls, looks down at the castle. There are still people wherever she turns her eye: the lords, the servants, the guards; soon, however, these walls will become quite empty and abandoned, but for her little household.

“I have to say I admire you,” says Petyr, surprising her, when one day she sits by the window with her embroidering. “Scarcely a fortnight, and all our servants are ready to kiss the ground on which you tread.”

“Is it not my duty to make them feel so, my lord?” she asks with a playful little smile, and rises to kiss him. _I probably should not enjoy his kisses this much_ , she thinks; this past few days gave her many an occasion to consider things that a lady should find appropriate and enjoyable.

Once she has sat back, Petyr stands by her seat, and looks through the window. Sansa puts her needle through the delicate fabric, finishing an outline of a leaf.

They have not talked of her seducing the king since that supper a few days ago; Sansa half-expected it to come up in every conversation they now share, but so far, Petyr has not raised the subject.

She has spent quite some time considering the matter during her walks, and every moment free of domestic duties. Petyr’s idea failed to shock her initially, and even after thorough consideration does not repulse her that much. It is, of course, utterly immoral; but then, it is difficult – nay, it is _impossible_ – to argue morality with a man who intrigued to put at least half of the chaos that tore the land into motion, who planned the deaths of several people, who schemed his way through the war, never caring for anyone but himself (and, occasionally, for her, though she is not vain enough to believe he did this out of love), never looking back or regretting his deeds. More importantly, it is impossible for her to argue morality and tell him she would never act against a certain code without seeming a hypocrite.

That Petyr dared suggest her, his lady wife to seduce the king bothers her more, and indeed angers her, even though, all things considered, it should not be surprising.

A thought that tips the scale results from another chance meeting with Jon in the garden, and another reflection that a few years ago she might have fallen in love with that man.

The girl Sansa wanted a king to love her; right now, she is a step away from fulfilling this wish, and with a king who is kind, courteous and noble.

“You have also made quite an impression on the ladies of the court,” says Petyr, as he turns towards her, smiling as usual. “Lady Egen apparently couldn’t recall ever meeting a more foolish woman in her life.”

“She asked me about Robert Arryn’s accident,” says Sansa calmly, not even bothering to ask him how he knows. The servants overhear, and they talk to other servants, who repeat the things they hear to their lords. “It bothered her that the subject failed to move me.” Her days of torturing herself over Robert are long gone; she has not given a slightest thought to the conversation with Lady Egen.

“Do you think she will trouble you again?” asks Petyr, stroking his beard.

“Since she already considers me foolish, she may not see a point,” says Sansa. She turns the shawl in her hands, and chooses on it a place for the next leaf. “And she has left King’s Landing with her lord husband a few days ago, I think.”

“Ah, yes,” says her lord husband. “I am considering leaving King’s Landing myself, in the next ten days, or, if I close all my affairs earlier, mayhaps even faster.”

Sansa raises her head abruptly.

“Leave already? Why?” she asks. “I have only just arrived.”

“I meant leaving myself, my dear,” says Petyr. “You will stay here for a time. As for why, well, that little castle that your cousin has bestowed on us needs seeing to, and it probably requires being put in order before I let my lady wife put a foot in there.”

“I hope it won’t take long until we can join you there,” says Sansa. After all this time without Petyr, she has no wish of staying away from him again, of not being able to talk to him, to share the bed with him, to just meet him like now, in the middle of the household duties, and exchange little comments, and kisses.

Petyr studies her face. “It all depends on the shape in which I find the castle,” he says. “But I rather thought you should like to see to the king when I am absent.”

Sansa puts the needle through the fabric, folds the shawl and places it on a stand by the window. Then she takes a deep breath. “You still have not explained your plan to me,” she says. “Could you do it now, my lord?”

Petyr gazes at her pensively, and then turns to the window.

“Within a year, mayhaps a little longer, our dear sovereigns will have come to their senses and finally appointed a Hand,” he says.

“And you, my lord, want to be the Hand,” hazards Sansa, somewhat surprised; he never mentioned becoming the Hand in their conversations about their future at the court.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” says Petyr. “I’ve grown tired of staying in the shadows, my dear. It is high time we took some power in our hands.”

“But how is my sleeping with the king going to make you the Hand?” asks Sansa.

Petyr finally moves away from the window, and sits down on a chair opposite her. He appears rather concerned, and Sansa realizes that it really is not a joke of his.

“You do realize that it is not very likely that the king would ever want me to become his Hand, don’t you?” he begins.

“Why would he not, my lord?” she asks with a straight face. “It is not like you’ve ever done anything that could make him wary of taking you into his service.”

Her lord husband smiles, but his grey-green eyes remain serious. “The problem with people like him is that they are too noble to see the usefulness of people like me,” he says. “But he should want someone with a little experience in the matters of court and ruling for his Hand, perhaps someone who has lived at the court before, under the Baratheons. And we’d rather it was me whom he chooses, not someone else, wouldn’t we?”

There are but a few people left from the times of kings Robert and Joffrey. Most have been killed one way or another, while the few survivors do not have the favour of the royal couple and bide their time in their castles all over the country.

Sansa is about to say that there is nobody but Petyr who fits his description, when suddenly she realizes that there is one other man, who has been at the court in those times, and who, moreover, has fought alongside Jon and Daenerys in the war, and has at least Jon’s friendship.

Tyrion Lannister. The name brings on an unpleasant feeling in her tummy. He was kind to her once, and for that she is ever thankful; he might be kind to her now, even despite the dissolution of their joke of a marriage. He will not be kind to her lord husband, though.

“No, we wouldn’t like someone else,” she says finally, and, without further consideration, asks, “How do you see my role in this, then?”

“It is very simple, really,” says Petyr. “The king will doubtless be very guilty over sleeping with you, and we will only need him to act upon this guilt, make him want to reward you for suffering his advances.” Upon a look from Sansa, he smirks. “He is a very honourable man, my dear. That’s how he will think.”

“But it will be too obvious what my motives are, if it is me suggesting that he made you a Hand,” says Sansa slowly, and realizes that she is already thinking the plan a matter decided.

“The idea will have to come from the outside, of course,” says her lord husband. “From the queen, perhaps, or one of the Small Council. I’ll take care of that.” He rests his head on his hand. “Well? What do you say now?”

It is her turn to examine his face; Petyr looks at her intently, not a shade of uncertainty or doubt in his eyes.

“Will my sleeping with the king really not bother you, my lord?” she asks in the end, the only thought that bothers her now.

His expression changes; he has the grace to look a little uneasy. “But it will, my dear,” he says. “Why otherwise would I be leaving the castle?”

It rains heavily on the day of Petyr’s departure, and Sansa, who deeply dislikes public displays of affections, is both relieved and sorry that she cannot put him on his way.

Soon she finds that she misses him more after this short time together than before, when they had not seen each other for almost half a year.

When she walks in the gardens or through the castle now, she meets the king quite often. They do not usually go beyond some courtesies, do not exchange more than a few words. Sansa wonders whether it will be actually possible for her to make Jon fall for her, when they have not even held one proper conversation since the one in the garden. He is, of course, preoccupied with carrying out all the tasks usually divided between the members of the Small Council. There must be some way for her to spend a little more time with Jon, however. She needs to find it, to make it possible for them to at least know each other a little better.

“You must be very tired with so much work on your shoulders, Your Grace,” she tells him upon their next meeting, this time not quite a chance one. “It is a pity you cannot take a rest.”

“Someone needs to take care of the ruling, and my duty lies in serving the land,” says Jon. He is probably the only man whom she can believe to mean this not only as a pretty phrase in a conversation. “But what is it that still keeps _you_ in court, my lady? Nigh everybody else has left.”

Sansa smiles under his questioning gaze.

“Bran arrives soon,” she tells him. “I have not seen him in a while, and I don’t want to miss a chance of meeting him now.”

Bran is the only of her siblings that she has been seeing with some regularity since the war, and, having come to the conclusion that neither of them – he, after all his mysterious learnings, she, after the Vale - has remained much of a Stark they have formed a bond like they never shared in childhood.

Jon nods in understanding.

“Will he be coming straight from Winterfell, or has he been spending time out of it again?” he asks.

“He wrote to me from Winterfell, but I don’t know whether he was not going beyond the Wall lately,” she says.

Jon nods again, and hair fall into his eyes. When he puts it in order, Sansa realizes that she enjoys watching him; he is, undoubtedly, a very attractive man.

“I miss Winterfell sometimes,” says Jon suddenly; at this, Ghost looks up from the shadow he has laid in since the king and Sansa began their conversation. “I haven’t known a refuge like Winterfell gave us since I have left its gates.”

“It is changed now,” says Sansa, and recalls how unfamiliar Winterfell was to her upon coming back. “The people we have known are dead or gone, the castle does not look like you remember it… Our Winterfell is gone, my lord. Do not miss it.”

“Wouldn’t you like to live there again, my lady?” asks Jon, surprised. Ghost trots to his leg, and stares at Sansa with his red eyes.

“I have lived there during the war,” says Sansa. “It was a nightmare.” It is a little too frank, coming from her. Usually she guards herself better; but Jon appears thoughtful at that declaration.

A little later that day a servant brings her a message from the king. Since they are the only ones remaining at the castle, could she do him the honour of accompanying him at the supper?

Their conversation during the supper is more than a little forced. Sansa carefully tries the ground, but eventually decides that keeping to her usual mask of a perfect lady, tainted with a little cousinly warmth, will be the wisest course of action. It is very interesting to listen to Jon talk about his duties; it is a pity that he does not expect her to offer him more comment than the assertion that they must be quite exhausting.

They talk a little about Winterfell, and Sansa is somewhat embarrassed to recall how dreadful she must have appeared to Jon back then. He does not mention any of that, though; he seems glad to have someone to share memories with. As the supper progresses, Sansa comes to a realization that she likes Jon, and she would not mind being friends with him, under different circumstances.

Upon going to bed, she lies in the dark for a long time, unable to fall asleep. _It is not fair to Jon, that plan we have come up with_ , she thinks, and wonders if she should have agreed to it that readily. _He is too good to be so deceived._

 _I have made my decision, though._ She turns under her covers, and sighs, a little angry with her lord husband, and, a little more, with herself.


	4. Jon

It is Ghost who first notices Bran, or, more precisely, Summer, upon their arrival in King’s Landing. He raises his white head and sniffs the air, and then gets up from under a rosebush, and trots towards the two figures that Jon initially dismissed as servants and that are approaching down a garden lane. Only upon Ghost’s reaction does he notice another shape in the distance, a brown direwolf, running through the grass together with the newcomers.

“Bran,” says Sansa, and, smiling, rises from the garden seat.

As Bran comes between them and greets them, Jon realizes that what he considered a trick of light and exhaustion the last time they met is actually a fact: there is a slight green gleam to Bran’s skin and to the whites of his eyes; Jon can also make out several strands of green in his cousin’s otherwise reddish hair.

It is still difficult for Jon to remember that Bran is not really his brother. Sansa he has managed to accept as a cousin; she never was much of a sister to him in the first place. With Bran, matters are very different, and Jon regrets losing the bond they shared when they thought themselves brothers, for it seems that Bran is now much more cautious in contacts with him.

Sansa’s joy at Bran’s arrival surprises Jon, who cannot recall her ever showing the others what she feels. She is always calm, composed and very proper, and even though Jon believes that Sansa _does_ enjoy their conversations, he has never seen her break in smiles and ask questions as freely as she does now.

Summer, having already recognized and welcomed Ghost in their own, direwolfish manner, comes now to greet Jon by touching his hand with his nose. He is more reluctant with Sansa, but eventually allows her to pet him.

“It is so good to see you again,” says Sansa, as they are making their way towards the castle, the direwolves running in front of them. “But you still haven’t told us the reason for your coming.”

“I thought I would like to finally come and see at least one of the dragons,” says Bran, leaning heavily on one of his walking sticks. “And since I did not want to have to meet everyone at the court, I waited until King’s Landing would be empty.”

Jon does not ask Bran how he knew when King’s Landing would become empty; not after Bran has suggested to him once that all the important messages are carried by the wind, and one just has to know how to listen to them. It might have been a metaphor; then again, on each of their short meetings towards the end of the war, Bran seemed to possess a startling knowledge of matters that he could not have been told about.

“We may go to the dragon pit at once, if you are not tired,” says Jon, and Bran nods, for a moment looking once again like the enthusiastic little boy that Jon remembers from Winterfell.

The air inside the dragon pit is stuffy, and Sansa excuses herself from going in. Jon bids Ghost stay with her by the wall before the gate, so as not to irritate the dragon, and Bran makes Summer sit beside his brother.

There are but a few people inside the pit. Quite a number of the dragon-tenders went to Casterly Rock to watch over the unruly Viserion, and Daenerys took the rest of them to the East with her and Drogon. Rhaegal, small and almost gentle compared to her brothers, requires only a few caretakers, but she is fastidious when it comes to them. Jon, however, is of Targaryen blood, and the dragon seems to like him.

Upon noticing Jon come in, Rhaegal flies down from a stone shelf, and breathes smoke into his face by way of greeting. Then she carefully regards Bran.

“This is Rhaegal,” says Jon. Bran and the dragon look each other in the eyes, until Rhaegal finally allows Bran to touch her head.

“I wish I could spend several months here, just watching her,” says Bran after a moment. “She is very beautiful.”

This time Jon does not even feel surprised by Bran’s applying the right sex to the dragon. They are aware of Rhaegal’s being female since she laid an egg some two years ago. To Daenerys’ disappointment, it never hatched, and it seems that prophecies of there being more dragons to come in their age are not going to come true.

When they dine together, Sansa, Bran, and Jon, the conversation circles not around dragons, but Winterfell of the present day, and around the journeys through the land that both Sansa and Bran have recently taken. With ease and fervour that surprise Jon in her, Sansa recounts to them a few adventures that happened to her on her way.

“You will be setting out again soon, won’t you?” asks Bran when she is finished, but Sansa shakes her head.

“Oh, not yet,” she says. “My lord husband writes me that it will be a while before the Grassy Vale castle is fit for me to live in.”

Jon feels obliged to apologise, as it was him who gave the castle to Sansa and her lord husband, but she only smiles.

“It is not your fault that the Tyrrell army took their time to plunder the strongholds of the area,” she says. “We are ever grateful for your gift – it’s a beautiful place, I am given to understand.”

“I would very much like to visit you there one day,” says Bran lightly, and then his tone grows more serious. “But tell me, Sansa, how are the matters between you and your lord husband? Is everything alright?”

Jon feels more than a little uneasy, and from a very slight change in Sansa’s smile, he can tell that she does not like this turn in conversation either. Nonetheless, her voice sounds as calm and gentle as ever when she says, “Why, Bran, everything is as well as it can be. How could you possibly doubt it? Forgive us, my lord,” she tells Jon, and he hastens to tell her that it is alright.

Soon the mood is restored, and Bran is telling them about his plans for the time when he passes Winterfell on to Rickon, once the youngest Stark reaches his manhood. The idea of Bran willingly letting go of Winterfell bothers Jon a little, but he has to admit that with Bran’s not being able to sire an heir, it may be the best way to proceed. _And he says he doesn’t feel home at Winterfell anymore_ , Jon reflects. _Just like Sansa._ It is interesting to see them agree on this account, since they have grown so very different, both from one another - Sansa, a flawless lady, and Bran – almost a wildling – and from what he could have expected them to become back in Winterfell. Sansa is no more of a petty girl now than Bran is that barely tamed boy who scared his elders with climbing up the walls.

Bran spends only three days in King’s Landing, and most of this time he passes in the dragon pit.

In a moment alone, Jon tries to inquire Bran about his concerns for Sansa’s well-being in her marriage, but his cousin’s reply is evasive at best.

“Sansa has the right of it,” he says. “I shouldn’t have brought that subject up in your company.

“I am of the family,” says Jon, but Bran shakes his head.

“Forgive me, Jon, but you are not,” he says. “You are not a Stark.”

 _I’ve never really been one, and it never bothered you_ , thinks Jon, and he cannot help but feel annoyed. “Going by the way you look, neither are you,” he tells Bran dryly.

Bran laughs. “Going by the way we look, only Arya is a Stark,” he says. “And family or not, Sansa does not like having her private matters discussed in public. Still, I cannot help but wonder-” He stops himself, and says again, “But she would be angry. I shouldn’t bring it up at all.”

When they say their goodbyes, Sansa does not show any signs of anger; she only appears sad to see her brother leave already.

“Tell Meera Reed I would like to meet her again very much,” she tells Bran; he told them that he is going to visit Greenwater Watch on his way to Winterfell.

“You will have to travel north to see her,” replies Bran, already seated in his especially prepared saddle on the horseback. “Meera is not likely to come to the court.”

“You may take the Reeds with you the next time you go south,” says Sansa, and Bran smiles.

“Take good care of yourself and your little ones, sister,” he says, and Sansa replies him with a peculiar little smile.

As Sansa watches Bran ride away up from the wall, Jon tries hard to remember whether she put her lord husband on his way in a similar manner. _If_ Bran _felt compelled to ask about her marriage, it must be an utter failure_ , Jon realizes, and the thought makes him angry. _She does not deserve to suffer, with her beauty and kindness._

Once Bran is out of sight, Sansa turns away from the wall, and notices Jon’s stare.

“Is something wrong, my lord?” she asks, descending the stairs. Her question catches Jon off-guard.

“Not at all,” he says. “I’ve only been wondering-” he searches for a safe subject matter, and leaps for the one closest at hand. “I had no idea you knew the Reeds, my lady.”

“I have spent some time in Greenwater Watch when the war was ending,” explains Sansa, a little surprised. “The Reeds were wonderful hosts to me.”

“I see. I didn’t know about it,” says Jon. “Are you very busy with the household duties, my lady?” he asks to keep the conversation going.

“Not very busy, no. In fact, I have very little to do these days,” she says, and Jon again realizes how lonely she must be, with nobody left in the castle, and invites her to have this day’s supper with him.

The invitation soon extends to the next days. It seems that the dinner with Bran has broken the ice between them; Sansa has lost most of her reserve, and the way she talks to Jon now is quite free and animated, her reactions to his comments and the stories that she tells him are natural and vivid.

Still, the things she tells him of herself are impersonal, unimportant. Unless Jon brings up the subject, she does not mention their childhood at Winterfell or her being at the court before the war, and even when asked, she only skims over the subject of herself during the war.

“There is nothing to talk about, Jon,” she says eventually, and offers him an apologetic smile. “I did not fight, did not lead armies. Mostly I travelled between the castles and strongholds, and took care only that nobody recognized me.”

Jon does not quite know how to reply to this.

It surprises him now to have ever thought Sansa stupid. She may not understand politics or war – indeed, the subjects seem to bore her a little, and she only displays any interest in them by asking about his work – but conversations with her are nonetheless a pleasure, even more so because of how natural they are. The other ladies of the court have always seemed to Jon to be only waiting to entice him, to make him pay them compliments; Sansa remains perfectly friendly throughout their suppers.

The problem that begins to bother Jon, a little at first, and then very deeply so, is that he does not think of Sansa as only a friend anymore. It bothers him that he is now able to tell her genuinely happy or amused smiles apart from those appearing on her lips out of courtesy only; that he knows how she will glance down, for a split moment, before allowing herself to tell him a story from her past after Winterfell; that he knows how her voice changes and grows warmer when she talks about her children. In every conversation, he waits for that particular little smile of hers, which he cannot yet quite explain away, and at its every appearance, he wants to kiss it off Sansa’s lips.

It is most improper, he tells himself on going to sleep every night, to even be aware of the curves of Sansa’s body, the soft arch of her neck. Most improper, especially with both of them married, however unhappy Sansa’s marriage could be.

Even still, merely watching Sansa during the supper makes him unable to sleep peacefully at night. Within a few days the thought that she is too much of a lady, too well brought-up to ever allow him to as much as touch her stops being a consolation for his troubled conscience.

 _I have already broken one oath too much_ , he tells himself, pushing his nails into his hands until they hurt, and tries to busy himself with his work.


	5. Sansa

Sansa breaks her fast on fruit and water, quite unable to eat because of the heat that now reigns over King’s Landing. Spring has changed into summer with nobody noticing the exact moment of the shift, and the stifling weather has greatly reduced the appetites of Sansa and her children.

“Maybe some cheese, my lady?” asks the maid.

“Thank you, Idaly, I am fine,” says Sansa. She finishes her breakfast with one more orange, more for the fresh taste of the juice than nutrition itself.

After the meal is over, Sansa arranges the household’s work for the day. The maids are assigned some sewing, and take it to the room where the children are playing, so as to gossip with the nurse who is watching over the twins. Sansa herself goes up the stairs to the quiet chamber that is Petyr’s study, where she sits down to count the last month’s costs of keeping the household.

Once done with going over the figures, she puts the book back into its drawer. Out of another drawer, she takes Petyr’s latest letter, and reads anew her lord husband’s cheerful description of his endeavours to render the Grassy Vale castle more inhabitable. The people do not seem overjoyed with their new lord, he writes, but he is more than confident that they will take to their new lady once she arrives. Then he goes on about the Tyrrells’ complaints over having the Reach taken away from them for their allying with the Baratheon kings, and about the subsequent riots all over the Reach.

There is, of course, an encoded message within the letter, which Sansa has deciphered with a mixture of amusement and annoyance: _Give the king our warmest affections_. Reading it, she can picture Petyr, his slightly mischievous smile, a gleam in his eye, his fingers stroking his beard; she realizes once again that she misses him more than she should, all things considered.

There is knocking at the door, and when Sansa raises her head, she sees that both her children are standing in the doorway and peeking curiously into the chamber.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, getting up from her chair, and going towards them as they have entered the room.

“Lady mother,” says her son, and looks at his sister, who takes the cue.

“The prince invites us to go play with him,” she says, giving her mother a very serious look of the kind that never fail to make Sansa smile. She leans to get a closer look at her children’s faces.

“Can we go, mother?” asks her son, impatient, but still trying hard to follow his sister in her propriety. Sansa cannot help but laugh, and bid them both go. The twins cling to her skirt for a moment, and then excitedly run out of the chamber.

Sansa watches after them, still smiling, and then she frowns slightly.

Her lady mother told Sansa once that marriage might turn out to be better or worse, but that she would always find refuge in her children: yet another thing she had got more than partly wrong. Oh, Sansa loves her children, there is no other way around it: they are pretty – both dark-haired, the boy with her blue eyes, the girl with Petyr’s green-and-grey, they are smart, lively, and keen, and adorable in their attempts to behave properly. She loves her children, and she does not mind the thought of having more. But having spent nigh half a year almost only in their company, and on the road to that, has worn Sansa out greatly, and even now she finds herself getting easily tired of their presence.

With that exhaustion of seeing still the same familiar faces, she would be looking forward to the suppers with the king even without her lord husband’s plan on her mind.

The dress sticks unpleasantly to Sansa’s body as she walks through the castle in the midday heat. On the way back to her chambers, she encounters Jon. Seeing her, he stops and bows, though not as deeply as he would have a fortnight ago; as they have got more familiar with each other, Jon’s behaviour lost some of its initial formality. His sight for a split moment slides down Sansa’s body, before he averts his eyes and walks away. Sansa thinks that she might very well encode a message of a success into her next letter to her lord husband; the looks that she has been getting from Jon for the past few days are of the exact sort she was accustomed to get from the men courting her in Winterfell.

Jon, of course, is far too noble to make one step towards her; she amuses herself with speculating whether this is the Stark or the Targaryen in him. Prince Rhaegar is said to have been chivalrous to a fault, but then again, in the end, he _did_ run away with Lyanna Stark. Sansa wonders whether Jon will live up to his lord father’s example, or if she will have to steer him into having an affair with her.

When she arrives to the supper later that day, Jon greets her with a smile, and a comment about heat.

“It might be good to have a proper summer at last,” says Sansa, taking her seat. Jon takes in her silk white dress, and then glances away to where Ghost is lying behind his chair, cooling himself against the wall. The direwolf’s presence makes Sansa a little uncomfortable; the beast does not seem to like her. “The realm could use it to make food reserves for the future.”

“So it is “winter is coming” again, my lady?” asks Jon with a smile.

Sansa frowns.

“I’d say we had enough of winter for this lifetime,” she says, expressing a sentiment that she has heard repeated throughout the country, from Winterfell to King’s Landing.

“It may be that you are right,” says Jon, tipping his goblet to her. “Even without winter, there are enough problems to keep us busy for a good decade. The Tyrrell business, for instance, being a rather complicated one, with their centuries long claims to the Reach – but I am sorry, I will bore you,” he says, and looks concerned.

 _I may know more about the Tyrrells than you do_ , she reflects, thinking back to Petyr’s letter. _You do need him for the Hand._

“I am sure you will find the right solution,” she says, giving him a small smile.

They talk throughout the meal, and as the time passes, the looks that Jon gives Sansa grow longer and bolder, to the point when she begins to consider blushing.

Then, however, she becomes distracted, as through the window behind Jon’s back she notices flames emerging out of the building of the dragon pit into the darkening sky.

“What’s going on there?” asks Sansa, and before Jon has the time to look around, a servant bursts into the room.

“Your Grace,” he says, panting. “The dragon-”

Jon abruptly turns towards the window and, upon seeing the flames, gets up immediately.

“Stay here, Ghost,” he says firmly, and the direwolf, who also jumped up, lies back on his place by the wall. “Forgive me, Sansa, I must see to Rhaegal.”

“Can I go with you?” she asks on a sudden impulse.

Jon looks surprised; then he looks through the window again and, seeming to realize he does not have time for empty discussions, allows her to follow.

They hurry through the castle halls, dark after the sunset. For once forgetting courtesy, Jon forces Sansa to run to keep up with him.

“Wait here, and don’t make any noise,” Jon instructs her once they get to the gate of the dragon pit; Sansa barely hears him through the dragon’s roar, flapping of the wings and screams coming from inside the pit. Strangely, she does not feel afraid; if anything, the whole thing seems exciting to her.

Sansa remains by the gate as Jon runs into the dragon pit. Soon, she sees the dragon-tenders emerging from the pit, and directing themselves towards the maester’s tower; by the look of them, some are badly hurt.

She waits by the door until the sounds the dragon was making subside, and then quiet altogether, whereupon she dares to look inside the pit. Seeing nothing through the smoke, Sansa walks in.

She finds Jon leaning against a stone pillar. In the dim light of a single torch, she sees the dragon up on a stone shelf. Rhaegal’s scales are glimmering with green, her large yellow eyes watch Sansa for a moment before they close. It almost feels like a song: a brave knight, a dangerous dragon, and – and her.

“You are so brave to face her alone,” she says sincerely, turning to Jon.

He offers her a slightly weary smile.

“They should have sent for me earlier,” he says. “She wouldn’t allow anyone to approach her.” He winces, and touches his forearm.

“But you are hurt, Jon,” says Sansa. She comes closer, and takes hold of his hand to examine the burn. To her relief, it does not seem severe.

“It only stings,” Jon gently removes Sansa’s hand from his forearm. “Targaryens are not easily hurt by fire.”

When he still has not let go of her wrist after a few moments, Sansa raises her head at him. In the light of the torch, Jon’s eyes seem to be purple; he is no Stark in the dragon pit. Before Sansa has time to think, Jon puts his hands on her arms, pulls her closer, and kisses, deeply, impatiently.

His hold on her arms is at first a little too tight; after a moment, however, his grip grows weaker, as if Jon was coming to his senses. Sansa puts her hands into his hair, and draws him in for more.

Jon hesitates for a moment, but then, not breaking the kiss, he pushes Sansa against the stone pillar and, a little uncertainly, begins to touch her through the thin fabric of her dress. As his fingers brush her breasts, and then make their way down her side, Sansa makes a small, soft noise, and pulls Jon even closer, sliding her hand under his shirt.

He does not need more encouraging. He grips her thigh with his fingers, and pulls up Sansa’s skirt. Kissing her neck, he murmurs something which may be a compliment, or a confession of some kind; Sansa, busy with his garments, does not listen. When he pushes inside her, a bit too soon and a little impatiently for her liking, she gasps loudly into his ear.

The smell of dragon smoke still keeps to Sansa’s hair and dress on the next day, and she has a bath prepared first thing in the morning.

She rummages in her little chest of herbs for the rose-scented bathing salts, when she comes across a small package of moon tea. For a moment, she stares at the packet, various assumptions and possibilities running through her head, and then she pushes moon tea to the bottom of the chest. A while later, she finds her salts.

The day passes Sansa without much turmoil; she only spends a little while considering the night’s events, before she gets pulled into the usual rhythm of the household’s work. Even before noon, she composes a letter to Petyr, and makes the servant take it up to the rookery. Shortly after the seamstress comes for the fitting of one of the new dresses. It is made from a delicate fabric in the colour of fresh spring leaves, and Sansa smiles when the maids express their admiration for her appearance.

“It should be let out a little,” she tells them. “I can barely breathe.”

“No, no, my lady, it is just as it should be,” says Idaly, and Graecy adds, “And it is perfect with your colouring, my lady.”

“Would my lady like the dress adorned with some embroidery, some gems, maybe?” asks the seamstress. Sansa hesitates at a thought of more spending; but then, if she is to be the wife to the Hand –

“What do you propose?” she asks, and they spend some time discussing the possible adornments, and then one more dress that Sansa decides she can afford.

In the evening, she leaves her chambers for the supper with Jon. As she approaches the small chamber in which they dine, Sansa begins to feel excited; she wonders how Jon will behave, having become her lover. Will he kiss her when she enters? Pay her compliments throughout the dinner?

Already upon entering the chamber she sees that her expectations are utterly wrong. Jon looks tired and somewhat haunted, and startles when he notices her entering. _Gods, already?_ She has expected him to have qualms, and, as her lord husband had predicted, feel guilt, but not that fast.

Sitting down in her chair, Sansa cannot feel but disappointed with Jon. _The time to have doubts is before you have done something, my lord_ , she thinks, but knows better than to say it out loud.

They eat in silence, until it wears Sansa down.

“It saddens me to see you so unhappy,” she says. Jon raises his head from above his plate; as far as she can tell, he has eaten but a few bites of his meal.

“My lady,” he begins, but Sansa interrupts him.

“My lord,” she says. “It saddens me – no, it _offends_ me to see you so unhappy after last night.” It also makes her more than a little angry; for a moment she has thought they could even last beyond what her lord husband’s plan had for them; it is now all gone.

“My lady,” he says again. “What we’ve done is absolutely wrong-”

“I know,” she says, and sighs. “I know,” she repeats, and in a look that she gives him she tries to convey the impression that she too feels lost, but also a little hurt. “How could I not know? It’s just that I have thought…” she allows her voice to trail off.

At this point, Jon’s courtesy wins over his moral qualms, and he begins to console Sansa; eventually, with displaying some more distress, she manages to steer him out of his self-contempt, and into telling her that the situation is absolutely no fault of hers.

When he begins to tell her how beautiful and absolutely perfect she is, she must admit, with some dark amusement, that she enjoys this game.


	6. Jon

At daybreak Jon allows himself to forget about all his doubts and qualms. He watches sleeping Sansa in the weak light of the dawn, marvelling over her beauty: the soft curls of her hair upon the pillow, the half-smile on her lips, the shadows cast onto her cheeks by her lashes. He wants to kiss her mouth, her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, her belly; wishes she was awake, so that he could make love to her again.

Sansa moves in her sleep, causing a lock of hair to fall over her cheek, and murmurs something softly.

“Soft” and “gentle” are the words he uses most often when thinking about Sansa. She is so much more delicate than Daenerys is, than Ygritte once was, and in a way, it still fills him with wonder.

Lying back on his pillow, Jon thinks of his great-grandfather, Aemon the Conqueror, who at the same time took two wives; and of his own father, Rhaegar, who, smitten with Lyanna Stark, married her in secret. At daybreak, when Jon allows himself to escape the reality, his biggest wish is that Sansa was free, and that he could take her for a wife. Daenerys would have been furious, of course; but perhaps, with time, they would have learned to get on with one another. With Daenerys, he could have quarrelled and talked over the realm’s matters; Sansa would have brought him calm comfort after Daenerys’ storms.

However, Sansa is not free, and all they have is but a few days, a fortnight possibly, a month if they are lucky, before she will have to leave for her lord husband’s castle. Even with that little time, they cannot spend every night together without raising suspicions; already Jon feels certain that their servants know all about their affair.

Sansa has told him that his guilt offends her, and probably she is right; it is odd to see her trying to live in a moment, like Daenerys does, trying not to talk with him about the future, pretending not to consider the inevitability of breaking up.

“But it _is_ wrong, Sansa,” he tells her sometimes, usually kissing her time after another, or already anxiously unlacing her dress.

Sansa puts a finger to his mouth and tells him not to think about it now; so he kisses her again and again, until he forgets to think.

He wakes her not long after the sunrise, and they make love. She is, as ever after their first night, a little shy and uncertain in returning his caresses; watching her dress, Jon asks himself whether Sansa even enjoys their love-making at all. However, when she turns to look at him and leans to kiss him lightly on the lips, and whispers something into his ear, he believes that she does; otherwise why would she come back to him? Smiling to him one more time, Sansa leaves for her chambers, and her many domestic duties.

Jon’s days are filled with letters and penitents, and the work only keeps piling up on him. The smallfolk bring him their quarrels and crimes to judge and solve; the great lords send in ravens with meticulous descriptions of their demands from the crown; some, also, with not so veiled threats. Both his Master of the Coin and Master of the Laws write, requesting permission to lengthen their stay at their respective castles, and after some consideration, Jon replies with the affirmative.

Ravens from Sam at the Castle Black arrive regularly, and it is always difficult for Jon to read through these letters. The watchtowers along the Wall are being rebuilt and filled with new men. The new Lord Commander does not seem as competent as Jon could wish him to be, and he has to stop himself from writing the man letters of advice. But it would not do; the king should not get into the Night Watch’s affairs. The only letters he can write to Sam are about his duties at the court, which his friend never really comments on; Jon feels that Sam still has not forgiven him for taking the crown.

A short note from the East informs him that Daenerys will be away at least for a month more. He reads it with a mixture of irritation (ungrounded, since Daenerys too is taking care of the realm’s matters) and relief that he will be granted some more time with Sansa.

He wonders how his son would find himself as a king, having spent his youth watching Jon, stagger helplessly between his duties. He wishes that the boy would be able to learn from his lord father’s mistakes.

After one particularly long day, filled with ravens and demands, he finds himself at the end of his tether.

“This land deserves a better king than me,” he tells Sansa bitterly during the supper. “One that can understand all the nuances of relations with the Tyrrells, the Lannisters, the houses of the Vale – one that has more experience, patience, and honour.” The last word escapes him before he considers it, and, for a split moment, the look that he gets from Sansa is almost sharp. After another moment, the impression is gone, and she offers him her usual gentle reassurances.

“I don’t think you a bad king, Jon,” she says. “I know that you are doing your very best, and given that you have not been raised at a court, I believe that the effects are very good.”

Jon wishes that she could be right; but, after all, what does Sansa know about reigning a kingdom? She would probably have told him the same thing if he had been failing in all fields.

“Still,” he says, deep in self-contempt, “wouldn’t you say that the realm deserves better than a king who is an oath-breaker, a turn-cloak?”

At this point of the conversation, Daenerys would have been up in arms already. Sansa, however, only watches him calmly.

“I don’t know what the realm deserves, my lord,” she says. “But I know that you brought peace to it. As for honour-” she pauses, and glances down.

“Yes, my lady?” asks Jon, looking out to find consolation in her words.

“I have found that sometimes it is better to breach the line of honour, to lie, for instance, than to be killed,” she says, not looking up. She was pretending not to be Sansa Stark for quite some time during the war, Jon recalls.

“Your lord father would not have been pleased with this,” he says; thoughts of Lord Eddard have been haunting him a lot lately. _He would have cursed us both out of the family a long time ago, had he been alive._

Sansa plays with a piece of an apple on her plate; he has not seen her that thoughtful yet.

“My lord father was a very good man. My lord father was a very honourable man. And my lord father died, while we both have survived,” she says, and looks up at Jon. “Sometimes honour is not the thing most worth following, I think,” she adds slowly.

“What is, then?” asks Jon. He expects her to reply “survival”, and, even though he cannot agree with her dismissal of honour, he thinks that she cannot be blamed for fearing death.

“Love, perhaps,” says Sansa, a little distantly, and then her expression changes; she looks as a child caught on acting naughty. “But forgive me, my lord, I am rambling,” she says, and hastily changes the subject.

Jon is, for a moment, at a loss for words. Sansa has never spoken about love before; indeed, she has not spoken about her feelings at all, leaving them to be guessed by him. A warm feeling creeps over Jon’s heart, and he smiles: to think that she loves him makes it all worthwhile.

Still, over the course of the following days his conscience begins to trouble him again. Since the evening after their first night together, he has not tried to talk with Sansa about putting an end to their affair; he put it off, thinking only that it would be better to break up the matter before they grew too close together. Now, Jon realizes, this has already happened, and Sansa will be hurt much more than he could wish her to. Thus, he begins to consider ways of bringing up the subject in a way that she could accept, a way that would not make her feel offended again.

He imagines himself telling Sansa that it is better to part before people learn about them, and start to talk. In fact, though, there are no people in King’s Landing to learn, or to talk, except for his servants, and those of her household, who, as Jon understands from Sansa’s tales, are absolutely loyal. Aside from them, there are no people in the castle: the lords and ladies have not returned yet, his queen wife is away, as is Sansa’s lord husband.

The thought of Sansa’s lord husband gives Jon an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach. For one, he is not quite sure how he will be able to talk to Lord Baelish when he returns to the court. True, Sansa’s marriage must be absolutely horrible, if she has given to him, Jon, so easily; but even that does not free him from being guilty in front of her lord husband.

He wonders what Lord Baelish’s reaction could be, had he ever found out about his lady wife’s affair with Jon. Recalling some of what he knows about the man’s past, he fears for Sansa. No, he will have to somehow keep her at the court, and watch over her happiness, as bestows a good cousin and a king.

 _Daenerys would not have been very happy either_ , he realizes. She would have probably clawed out his eyes, if not outright killed him; and then she would have gone after Sansa. She would have never forgiven them, that much is certain, muses Jon, thinking back to their never ending quarrels over Jaime Lannister.

One evening Sansa does not appear at their supper. Instead of her, a servant arrives, bringing apologies, and informing Jon that one of Sansa’s children has fallen sick, and she has to stay in her chambers.

Jon asks whether there is a need to send for a maester, but the servant replies that the child has already been taken care of, and should be alright by the morning.

Despite himself, Jon finds that he misses Sansa’s company, and his evening drags on frightfully. In the end, he heads for his son’s chambers.

Aemon, not yet asleep, greets him eagerly, and before Jon has time to find himself a seat, his son has already managed to ask him a dozen questions. Why is Jon always so busy? Will Aemon be that busy too, when he is the king? Why is Rhaegal so irritable these days? When will Aemon’s lady mother come back?

“We should have her here within a month,” Jon tells him. Aemon’s smile surprises him; he has not realized how much his son misses Daenerys.

“Lord father,” begins Aemon, a little timidly, and looks at Jon with Daenerys’ purple eyes. “Could you tell me a story?”

“Whoever taught you to be so courteous?” laughs Jon, ruffling Aemon’s dark hair. His son does not usually remember about his courtesies, in this respect taking a little too much after Daenerys than Jon would have liked.

“Sanny says we ought to always be polite,” replies Aemon, to Jon’s amusement. “But she threw some earth at me today, and never apologized.” Aemon frowns for a moment, but then he smiles again. “Could you tell me about how you fought the Others, lord father?”

Jon begins his story, for his son’s sake stripped of the more horrifying details. Aemon listens intently at first, stroking Ghost’s fur; then, however, he begins to doze off. Eventually he falls asleep, making Jon finish the tale in a whisper. Then he raises Aemon from his seat, and, for the first time in their lives, tucks his son in his bed. Aemon half-wakes when Jon covers him, and he smiles before drifting off again.

 _He looks so much like Daenerys._

Jon sits by his son’s bed and watches him asleep, thinking of his queen wife. Daenerys will be still in the East, taking care of Meereen and her other cities. Jon wonders whether she has time to miss him and their son, and, for the first time for almost a month, finds himself longing after Daenerys’ presence, her easy laughter, her temper, their quarrels even. Then, however, he recalls Sansa, in her gentle way of behaving; and, after a while of thinking of them against one another, Jon is no longer able to say for whom he now longs more, Daenerys, or Sansa.

The next day he takes a moment to look for Sansa in the gardens, having learned that his son is playing there again with the Baelish twins. He finds her watching over the children, and is surprised to see how joyous and animated she looks.

When Sansa notices him, her expression changes. Within a moment, she is her usual calm self, a little more serious mayhaps than Jon is used to.

“My lord,” she begins, giving him a concerned look. “I am leaving for Grassy Vale early on the morrow.”


	7. Sansa

She sits at the window after a sleepless night, watching the sun rise over the sea. It is going to be another stiflingly hot day, and she makes the most of the cool morning air, having opened all shutters in the chamber.

The children and her maids are sound asleep, tired after the food poisoning that took over her son in the evening and put the entire household into an uproar. Sansa, however, feels restless; she has tried to put her head to the pillow, but ended up raising from her bed.

She has been easily irritable and impatient over the last days, and only with utmost difficulty she manages to maintain her usual calmness. _It is because of the heat, and because of Jon that I feel so_ , she thinks, and then stops herself. _No, I won’t think of him here._

Someone knocks quietly at the door, and Sansa starts; she has not expected anyone else to be awake at this time of the day. She gets up from the window seat, and walks briskly to the door. Upon opening it, she sees a servant, holding a letter in his outstretched hand.

“It is from Lord Petyr, my lady. I thought you might want to read it at once,” he says.

Feeling her heartbeat quicken, she takes the letter from the servant’s hands, and reflects just in time to thank him. He smiles. They do seem to love her, her servants, or at least they pretend to love her well enough, so as to be in her favour; they are always eager to please her, bring her the sweetest fruit from the market, produce little toys for her children, pretend not to notice when she does not spend the night in her bed. She is already quite sure which one of them will go and relate her doings to her lord husband, and wonders what will happen to him.

She impatiently breaks the seal on Petyr’s letter, and reads it hungrily. It is not very long; after a description of her lord husband’s latest undertakings in Grassy Vale, there is the message she has been waiting for all along. _The castle is ready for your arrival_ , she reads, and smiles.

Before the maids wake up, Sansa has read the letter twice more, and made plans for the rest of the day.

“We should make the breakfast quick today,” she tells the maids when they, and the children, are gathered in the dining room. “We are leaving for Grassy Vale on the morrow, and I’d like to have been packed before evenfall.”

Her daughter’s eyes light up at this news.

“We’re going to lord father?” she asks.

“Yes, my darling,” says Sansa, and, still in high spirits, gives her children a radiant smile. “We are going to your lord father.”

The twins turn to one another and whisper excitedly for a moment before reaching a conclusion.

“We’re very happy to go,” says her son, and they both smile.

Sansa eats but a pomegranate, and then she gets up from the table.

“I shall give orders to the rest of the servants,” she says, and silences Idaly’s protests that she should eat something more. “Thank you, I am not hungry. You may finish your breakfast, and then get to packing.”

“Will we spend a long time in Grassy Vale, my lady?” asks Graecy.

“A month, two at most, I think,” says Sansa; she assumes that Petyr will not want to stay away from the court any longer than necessary, and she is not going to allow him to leave her alone again.

 _We could leave in the evening if we hurried._ She wonders for a moment whether not to tell the servants to prepare the horses. _But no, Jon’s sickness may still return, or, worse, Sanny may fall sick as well. It’s better to wait until the morrow._ The thought upsets her a little. She would like to see Petyr as soon as possible; she is extremely tired of King’s Landing’s heat; but most importantly, she wishes she did not have to talk to Jon again, and about leaving him at that.

Since the maids are preoccupied with choosing which clothes to take, it is Sansa who takes her children to the garden when a usual invitation from the prince comes.

“Will you be fighting the Others today again?” asks her daughter when they have all greeted. The boys agree to the idea, and soon they are all throwing rocks and twigs at three exotic trees, which represent the Others in their imagination. They are still playing when Jon appears in the garden.

He takes news of Sansa’s upcoming departure with prolonged silence, although she does not doubt that he also wishes to severe their bond. It is not that he does not want her anymore, or that he has had enough of her; but he is too troubled by the inappropriateness of their affair to truly enjoy their time together. Oh, he is ever courteous, and has not brought up the subject in a while; but Sansa cannot but read guilt in his eyes.

 _I had wanted a king to love me._ What she has failed to consider was that the king in question would have moral values of a _Stark_ , too deeply rooted to disappear overnight. _And after all that has happened to us since we left Winterfell, he might have done well to learn it does not do to be a Stark anymore._

“I shall miss you around here,” he tells her, a statement perfectly natural coming from a cousin and a friend. Sansa gives him an absent-minded smile; her son is just chasing Prince Aemon around a tree.

“I shall miss you,” says Jon again during their supper. He does not mention his duties or politics this evening; it is just as well, since Sansa feels weary with pretending not to have a slightest notion of the subjects. It does not do to show intelligence, but that Jon still assumes she has no idea of politics is borderline offensive.

“I shall miss you as well,” she says. It is not even a lie, for she does care for him, in a way. He is a good man, and because of this she hopes that he will never find out that their affair was premeditated. It takes now more than merely being good for Sansa to love a man, though.

“I’m afraid that your leaving means the end of – our relationship, my lady,” says Jon. Sansa could have had something to say about his subtlety, but she chooses to simply hold his look, and appear hurt. “And when you return to the court-”

“We should make it as if we had ever only been friends, my lord” she says slowly. “It will be difficult, but that’s all the world needs to see.”

Jon nods, and then, averting her gaze, asks,

“What would your lord husband do, should he find out?”

 _Why, in his letters he does not seem to be displeased._ “I don’t know,” she says however, also avoiding Jon’s eyes, and, in a very quiet voice, adds, “He would be within his rights to banish me from his castle, or even have me killed, wouldn’t he?”

Sansa feels a little uneasy saying that, although it again is not a lie. She allows herself to appear distressed.

As Jon takes in her words, the look of concern on his face only deepens.

“I wouldn’t allow him to-” he begins, and then stops abruptly. “I am sorry, Sansa. I shall try to offer you as much protection as I will be able to.”

“We just must never mention anything that happened between us to anyone,” she says, as if coming up with the thought at the present moment. “And it should all be right.” Jon’s grimace suggests that he does not believe her. “What else have we left, my lord, but to keep it all secret?” she asks, and he finally nods.

As they are saying goodbyes, Jon repeats that he should try to ensure her safety. Sansa gives him a small smile upon hearing this, and kisses him lightly on the lips. Then she slips out, and, accompanied by a guard, walks to her chambers, feeling relieved: she has done her part, and it is now up to Petyr to make use of it.

She does not doubt that her lord husband will become the Hand, and soon. It may be fairly easy, since Jon obviously does feel guilty about her; of course, he may after all not listen to the planned suggestion from the queen, or someone of the Council. _In which case I will have no choice but to make use of my own argument_ , realizes Sansa, for the first time voicing the still very vague idea. She does not dare pursue it.

Her party sets out in the early morning hours, before the heat becomes unbearable. Sansa gets into the traveling wagon with sleepy twins, their nurse, and Graecy; Idaly and her agreed to swap places on horseback after every stop-over.

King’s Landing is half-empty as they are making their way through the streets, the smallfolk not awake yet, the sellers only now putting up their stalls in the market.

In about a month, maybe two, the harvest is going to come, thinks Sansa. She closes her eyes and gives into the rhythmical swaying of the wagon. The lords and ladies will come back as soon as the harvest is over, probably preceded by the queen. In a year, the court may once again look like a court; that is, if the queen finally takes care of it. Suddenly, Sansa opens her eyes. _I could try to make her do it_ , she realizes, and a wave of excitement sweeps over her. _If I manage to become friends with the queen, I could even run the court through her._ The thought is a little bold, and the task maybe too complicated; she decides to think it over.

The journey lasts four days, although, as they drag on, it seems to Sansa that much more time has passed. The twins grow bored even sooner than she does, and no amount of stories told them makes them stop asking if they are going to arrive soon.

They take the Roseroad first, and then, once out of Kingswood, they turn south for the Grassy Vale. Towards the end of their journey they are making their way through the rivers of grass, from which Sansa’s new castle takes its name. Eventually, when the goal is almost at hand, she leaves the wagon to mount a horse. Although her mount’s pace is slow and graceful, Sansa feels a little unsteady on his back.

“Grassy Vale, my lady,” one of the servant tells her, when they ride into a valley.

The castle emerges in the middle of green walls of grass, half-embraced by the banks of Blue Byrn. It does not seem very large, but nonetheless quite impressive; as Sansa takes in the view, she notices the bridge being lowered; they are awaited.

They ride down a road coming gently down a side of the hill, and then right through the gate. When Sansa’s horse trots into the courtyard, she slows him down, and, upon seeing Petyr emerging from a door, gets down with the help of a servant. She walks towards him with a smile on her face, and her lord husband smiles, extends his arms, and kisses her.

There is a rummage in the wagon, and soon their children get out into the courtyard.

“Lord father!” exclaims their daughter, and, catching herself by reflex in the last moment, stops just a foot away from Petyr and Sansa, and makes a proper little curtsy, which is interrupted by her brother bumping into her back. Sansa laughs.

Soon the wagon and the horses are being unloaded, the children set out with their nurse to explore the castle, and Sansa goes with her lord husband for a walk around Grassy Vale’s walls.

“You look very well, my lady,” he says. “King’s Landing’s climate has served you well.” They proceed to talk away her journey and his latest occupations.

“The king sends you his respects,” says Sansa, when they are moving to the subject of King’s Landing again. If this conversation needs to take place, she would rather it took place soon; and the light tone she has devised for the subject seems to her the best course of action.

“Does he, now?” asks Petyr, sounding a little amused.

“Oh, I believe he will make you the Hand before the year passes, my lord,” says Sansa. “If you play your cards well – but with… a little luck… you won’t even have to play them at all.”

Suddenly, Petyr turns her to himself, and, holding her face in his hands, watches her carefully for a moment, while Sansa takes on an innocent expression. Finally, understanding dawns on her lord husband’s face. He smiles, and kisses her again.

“You’ve become a good player, my lady,” he says.

“Yes,” she replies with a little smile. “I have.”


	8. Epilogue. Daenerys

She had assumed that once she acceded to the throne, running the court would come naturally to her.

It did not, and still does not. She makes mistakes, one after another. She does not understand the customs. More importantly, she does not understand the people, and people seem not to understand her.

The failures to make the court work make her angry and impatient. That, in turn, makes her even more likely to blunder.

Daenerys feels in her element when she talks politics with Jon or someone from their Small Council, or one of her Eastern advisors. Ruling and making decisions is not difficult for her. However, she notices that even though the lords of the Small Council treat her ever with reverence, they ask Jon’s advice before settling to do anything.

They do not like women to rule here, in the West. She had realized as much by the time when she was wedding Jon. Questionable from the legal standpoint though his claim to the throne might have been, they preferred him, rather than her, to take the crown. She can joke about it, sometimes, but the thought still angers her.

Every now and then, she invites the ladies to her chambers, trying to make the court something more than just a void name. The meetings, however, never go quite as she would like them to. It may be because Daenerys cannot make herself enjoy the ladies’ company. They all seem so very bland to her, all preoccupied only with their children and dresses. Daenerys does not even understand their gossip, because she does not know whom and what their stories are about.

The gatherings never fail to bore her, but even so, she feels angered when during one of them the ladies, instead of trying to prolong the meeting as usual, quite soon start begging her permission to leave.

“Very well, you may all go,” says Daenerys, unable to keep her temper, when yet another lady begins to pose her the question. The women hasten out, and only Lady Sansa Baelish lingers a moment. _She never hurries, that one._ And especially not now, when she is several months with a child.

“Where are they all running to?” demands Daenerys, and Lady Sansa turns to her, surprised.

“It is the eve of Mother’s holy day, and they are all going to the sept to pray for their families,” she says. _Another custom I know nothing about._ “ I should go too.”

Still, she lingers a while more, and then, with some uncertainty in her voice, asks,

“Would you come with me, Your Grace?”

The question takes Daenerys aback. “I don’t go to the sept,” she tells the other woman.

“I know that,” says Lady Sansa. Under her long, unnervingly calm look Daenerys feels compelled to add,

“I don’t even believe in the Seven.” She has been introduced to several religions, both in the East and in the West, the Faith included, but none of them managed to lure her into worship.

“Still, the smallfolk might be happy to see their queen appear in the sept sometimes,” says Lady Sansa thoughtfully. She gives Daenerys a smile. “But forgive me, Your Grace. I presume too much.”

“No, wait,” says Daenerys quickly. She has not given a thought to how religious her subjects might expect her to be, but Lady Sansa’s words ring true in her head. “I’ll be glad to go to the sept with you, my lady.”

Daenerys has the litter prepared, and while they are waiting, she asks Lady Sansa to tell her more of this particular holy day. _How obvious she must find it all_ , thinks Daenerys, listening to the other woman’s explanations.

“You should make your servants take some small money to give to the poor before the sept, Your Grace,” says Lady Sansa before they leave. “They are always happy to see the ladies care for them.”

“I don’t need to give the poor money to care for them,” tells her Daenerys, but, again, the other woman’s words make sense to her.

In the time that follows, Daenerys has many an occasion to meet Sansa, to talk with her, and, as she admits to herself, _to learn_ from her. To Daenerys’ surprise, the last thing does not bother her very much, and does not stop her from enjoying the other woman’s company. Lady Sansa is, if anything, charming and gracious, and it seems very natural to follow her lead when she behaves like a lady in every moment of her life.

She finds that she envies Sansa the innocence that the other woman seems to have retained through the war, her ability to remain calm no matter what she is being told, and her kindness. Lady Egen deemed Sansa foolish, but the more Daenerys knows her, the more she realizes that Sansa is very clever indeed. In the matters concerning the rules of appropriate behaviour, the customs, managing the household – in short, all the knowledge that ladies of noble birth needs to possess to move within their world – Sansa certainly shows more wisdom than Daenerys would ever be able to acquire.

Her only fault is that she does not understand that Daenerys’ first concern is still ruling.

“It seems that I’ll never have time to really take care of the court,” says Daenerys to Sansa one day, after the envoys from the Free Cities have arrived in King’s Landing, “There’s always something going on. I don’t understand how the kings of the past could feast and hunt all the time, like the songs make us believe.”

On Sansa’s suggestion, she found a minstrel to add to her court. His songs are very pretty and sweet, but not much besides that; still, his presence seems to please the ladies.

“Well, the Baratheons ruled through Hands,” says Sansa, resting her hands on her belly. It seems so round that Daenerys expects her to disappear within her chambers to give birth any day now.

“The Baratheons were no kings, but usurpers,” says Daenerys coldly, but all Sansa gives her, as always, is a very calm look.

“I know of it, my lady,” she says. “As for taking care of the court-” she pauses. “Under Cersei Lannister I have seen how powerful a tool the court might be in adequate hands.” She smiles at Daenerys. “And she was an usurper, too. Perhaps running the court isn’t after all a task to be dismissed, my lady?”

For a moment Daenerys wants to scold Sansa for her insolence, however, she manages to stop herself in time. _She may have a point. I’ve never thought about it like that, but she may have a point._

Sansa indeed stops leaving her chambers in the following days. Daenerys sends her Maester Marwyn, but hardly has a moment to grow concerned for her friend. This time, it is her dragons that need her attention, not the matters of the kingdom. The egg that Rhaegal laid during Daenerys’ absence in the early days of summer is finally hatching, and she worries. They know so little of breeding dragons that she is not even able to tell how they should proceed with the egg; and they could do with another dragon.

Thankfully, the shell breaks within a day, and without much trouble. The little dragon’s scales are green like its mother’s. It keeps to Rhaegal, and watches Daenerys with curious, yellow eyes. _Well, we have a dragon for Aemon, then._

It is an eventful day, it seems: upon returning to her chambers, Daenerys is informed that the Free Cities envoys requested again for the debts to be paid, that another letter came from Highgarden, and that Lady Sansa has given birth to a girl.

As soon as she has read the letter from the Tyrrells, Daenerys’ mood falls.

“We should settle this matter once and for all,” she tells Jon. This, obviously, sets off a quarrel. It continues for a couple more days, every reappearance of the subject ending with Daenerys’ slamming the door, and leaving for the dragon pit.

On one of such walks, she encounters Lord Baelish.

“Lord Petyr, what a pleasant surprise,” says Daenerys, and thinks that Sansa would be proud to see her managing such composure, when all she wants is to scream and kill. “We’re very pleased to hear of your daughter’s birth – but tell me, how is Lady Sansa?”

“She seems to be very well, Your Grace,” replies Lord Baelish with a smile. Daenerys finds that she likes the man; he is ever pleasant and easy in conversation. “The maester thinks she will not have to stay abed beyond the usual time.”

“I’m very glad to hear it,” says Daenerys, and then sighs, for a moment envying Sansa the possibility of isolating herself in her chambers, and not having to take care of politics.

“Is something amiss, Your Grace?” asks Lord Baelish at once.

“Oh, it’s the Tyrrells again,” says Daenerys. “We cannot manage to deter them from the idea of getting the Reach back.”

Lord Baelish strokes his beard. “Perhaps I could be of help, Your Grace? I know the Tyrrells a little, from the – usurpers’ times.”

He agrees with Daenerys’ opinion that it may be the time they stopped reasoning with the Tyrrells, and subdued them by force. His final advice is, however, for a different solution, a subtler one.

The conversation with him makes Daenerys wonder whether the time has not come they allowed someone to help them with the ruling. The Master of the Coin suggested recently that they might want to appoint a Hand to relieve them from some of their extensive duties. Daenerys thought he meant himself, and dismissed the matter without further consideration. Now, however, she begins to seriously ponder appointing a Hand, especially when the Small Council is reluctant to follow on the idea for solving the Tyrrell business that she proposes.

They do not like women to rule here, in the West, but she will be damned before she lets them forget that she is the queen and that she has her say in the matters of ruling. If it takes to have someone loyal to her appointed the Hand, she will have someone loyal to her appointed the Hand.

Lord Baelish seems to her a very good choice: he has some experience in the matters of the politics and the court, he is of none of the great houses, so choosing him will not enrage the great lords like favouring one of them could. At the same time, being related to Jon through Sansa, he should be loyal to them; and since Sansa is _her_ friend, Daenerys supposes he may be loyal to _her_.

She turns the matter in her head for quite some time, but when during another chance meeting Lord Baelish remarks to her that he is thinking of leaving for his castle at the border of the Reach, and taking Sansa and the children with him, Daenerys acts at once.

Settling the matter takes but one conversation with Jon, and she emerges victorious, if a little surprised by how little her lord husband protested. Afterwards, Daenerys goes straight to Sansa’s chambers.

She finds her friend out of bed, sitting by a cradle where her younger daughter lies, and telling some story to the elder girl, Sanny.

“Sansa,” she says, excited, when they have exchanged the greetings, “I have a surprise for you.”

“What is it, my lady?” asks Sansa, a little amused by Daenerys’ state.

“I am making your lord husband our Hand,” says Daenerys, and laughs at the shock at Sansa’s face. “Really, I am! I have talked with the king, and he agrees that it is a good idea.”

Sansa blinks several times. “I – thank you, my lady,” she says at last. “It is a surprise.”

“Lord Petyr will agree, won’t he?” asks Daenerys, suddenly realizing that she has never considered asking this question before. “I don’t think we may find someone better-suited for this post than him. You will convince him for me, won’t you, Sansa?”

“If you consider it so important, my lady,” says Sansa after a short moment, and smiles weakly. “I’ll do my best.”

“It is settled, then,” says Daenerys.

The baby girl in the cradle begins to cry. Sansa takes her out, and, after a short inspection, hands over to the nurse, who has appeared in the room at the sound of the baby’s voice. Under Sansa’s watchful eye, the woman feeds the girl until she calms down.

After a moment of hesitation, Daenerys gets up, and takes the baby out of the nurse’s arms. The girl lifts her eyelids sleepily, and for a moment looks at Daenerys with deeply blue eyes.

“She looks so much like you,” says Daenerys to Sansa, curling a lock of the girl’s auburn hair around her finger. “You should have kept _Sansa_ for this one.”

“Oh, no, _Alayne_ is absolutely perfect for her,” says Sansa with a small smile. Daenerys pauses; she recalls no Alayne in songs and stories she has heard so far. _I’ll have to ask about it later._

Daenerys holds Alayne for a moment more, before putting her back into her cradle.

 _I wish I could have a baby like her again._ The thought surprises her; she would never expect to envy another woman her children. But she does envy Sansa: not only does her friend have three children already, but she may have more still. They judge a woman’s usefulness by her fertility here, just like they do in the East. If Daenerys believed in any gods, she would have thanked them for allowing her to give birth to an heir at least, and one as wonderful as Aemon at that.

It worried her that Aemon had no contact with children his age, and that he might have become a little recluse; but she does not need to trouble herself anymore. Aemon and Jon Baelish seem to have become best of friends, and they always play together, be it in the castle or in the gardens. She recalls with a smile that Aemon begged to be allowed to learn swordplay a few days ago, and for his friend to be included in the lessons. _He is ever so enthusiastic, that son of mine._

She glances down at the cradle. Alayne is sleeping soundly, red hair scattered around her head. _You will be meeting the Prince very often as well, I promise_ , she thinks, and strokes the girl’s cheek.


End file.
